If you’re looking for a powerful video thumbnailer that creates thumbnail images with “printed” details of the source file such as the resolution, file size, frame-rates, codec type etc, then “ThumbnailMe” (free) is a features rich and easy to use app that you might find useful.
It supports GNU/Linux and Windows (XP, Vista and 7). Recently released the version 3.0 which brought few improvements over the previous versions. The GNU/Linux packages still aren’t updated to the version 3.0 but according to the developer, “.deb” packages should arrive pretty soon :).
I’m using the somewhat older 2.1 version in Ubuntu and cannot give you details of what’s new in the version 3.0.
Few main features …
*. Supports multimedia formats such as: .avi, .mkv, .mp4, Flash videos, .wmv, .mpg, .vob, .da, etc.
*. Change output image size, rows, columns and gap between thumbnails.
*. Change image output quality.
*. Skip totally “blank” frames.
*. Change the background color.
*. Adjust fonts and colors of info text and Timestamps.
*. As mentioned earlier, prints details such as: File size, resolution, frame rate, video/audio codecs etc.
*. Supports thumbnail creation for both single files and batch mode.
*. Preview the output image.
*. The 2.1 version only outputs JPEG format. But the never 3.0 supports changing PNG, JPEG, BMP and TIFF.
*. Change output file location.
These are some of its main features.
You can install Thumbnailme in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, 11.04 Natty Narwhal (might also work in somewhat older 10.10 and 10.04 too) by first downloading the “.deb” package from this ThumbnailMe home page (including packages for MS Windows).
Once the downloading completes, double click on the file and Ubuntu Software Center will install it (it gave me a “package of bad quality” warning, but I ignored it ;-), so far so good.
As said earlier, as an Ubuntu user, if you want few additional/new features, then you’d have to wait till they release the 3.0 version. But still, if you’re okay with the JPEG-only output in 2.1 version (and few other minor missing features compared to 3.0), then ThumbnailMe is still an excellent little tool anyway.
